Iranian naval swarming tactics focus on surprising and isolating the enemy’s forces and preventing their reinforcement or resupply, thereby shattering the enemy’s morale and will to fight. Iran has practiced both mass and dispersed swarming tactics. The former employs mass formations of hundreds of lightly armed and agile small boats that set off from different bases, then converge from different directions to attack a target or group of targets. The latter uses a small number of highly agile missile or torpedo attack craft that set off on their own, from geographically dispersed and concealed locations, and then converge to attack a single target or set of targets (such as a tanker convoy). The dispersed swarming tactic is much more difficult to detect and repel because the attacker never operates in mass formations...

*In wartime, Iranian naval forces would seek to close the Strait of Hormuz and destroy enemy forces bottled up in the Persian Gulf; therefore speed and surprise would be key. Iranian naval forces would seek to identify and attack the enemy’s centers of gravity as quickly as possible and inflict maximum losses before contact with subordinate units were lost as a result of enemy counterattacks. Geography isIran’s ally. Because of the proximity of major shipping routes to the country’s largely mountainous 2,000-kilometer coastline, Iranian naval elements can sortie from their bases and attack enemy ships with little advance warning. Meanwhile, shore-based antiship missiles can engage targets almost anywhere in the Persian Gulf and theGulf of Oman. To achieve the latter capability, and to improve the survivability of its shore-based missile force, Iran has devoted significant efforts to extending the range of locally produced variants of a number of Chinese shore-based antiship missiles such as the HY-2 Silkworm and the C-802 (from 50 to 300kilometers and from 120 to 170 kilometers, respectively). It has also introduced the use of helicopter-borne long-range antiship missiles. *

To ensure that it can achieve surprise in the event of a crisis or war,Iran’s naval forces keep U.S. warships in the region under close visual, acoustic, and radar observation. The Iranian navy commander—Rear Adm. Sajad Kouchaki, one of the architects of the country’s naval doctrine—recently claimed that Iranian submarines continually monitor U.S. naval movements, frequently at close range, and have even passed underneath American aircraft carriers and other warships undetected. Iranian UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] also frequently shadow U.S. carrier battle groups in the area.

For those who want more on this, UK-based analyst Martin Murphy also works a lot on Iranian swarming tactics.

The 30-minute incident was far from the most serious altercation between U.S. and Iran in recent history. But, as long as there's no dialogue between the two countries, even innocuous interactions can quickly become dangerous.

The vast majority of the time, the U.S. and Iranian navies maneuver peacefully through the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz... Still, the U.S. can't help but see unusual behavior through the prism of the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, when 17 sailors were killed, and in the context of more recent threats. In other words, 30 minutes on a normal day is all it could take for the two sides to move to their triggers...

We need hotlines and crisis procedures to avoid incidents with Iran from escalating. And we need professional exchanges to build understanding between our two nations.

Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, told the Boston Globe yesterday, that he worried about misinterpretation resulting in military confrontation. "I do not have a direct link with my counterpart in the Iranian Navy," Roughead said. "I don't have a way to communicate directly with the Iranian Navy or Guard." How stupid is that?

*Van Riper played the role of enemy commander... The little noticed war game was based on an eerily familiar scenario: A U.S.-led fleet has steamed into the gulf to dislodge the dictator of a rogue nation. But before the sands had run out on an American ultimatum, Van Riper's simulated evildoers attacked the U.S. ships with theater ballistic missiles, swarms of small, fast attack boats and ship-killing cruise missiles.*

By the time the virtual dust had settled, Van Riper's sneak attack had sunk16 U.S. ships and damaged many more in the worst naval defeat since PearlHarbor.